“Choke you?”
“Put your hands on my neck or spank me or hold me down or something.Anything!”
“I’ve told you a million times why I can’t do that.”
“Then let me be in charge,” she’d said. “At least at the start. Let me be some bitch being mean to you from high school and then you can?—”
Willow growled like an angry dog. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“What don’t I get? That something bad happened once, and now it’s over, and it doesn’t even fucking matter anymore?—”
He’d whirled around to face her, his usually sunshiny expression furious. “You have no idea what it was like to see you in that hospital bed! You haveno fucking clue!”
His genuine anger stopped the argument dead in its tracks. Willow had gone to shower. She’d gotten dressed, and then they’d left for the buffet breakfast hand-in-hand as though everything was fine.
Eden had been on edge all through the meal, unsure if anyone had heard them fighting in their hotel room. The record company was paying for them to stay at The Beverly Hills Hotel, and the idea that she and Willow had become ‘that couple’ on other people’s dime was mortifying.
Though not as mortifying as knowing it was her fault. She and Willow had been having perfectly good, perfectly normal sex, and she had ignored her instincts and asked for what she’d known in her heart he wouldn’t want to give.
Before the accident, she and Willow could tear the world down fucking. Bondage, breath play, the nastiest roleplay imaginable. Having kids hadn’t changed that, but the crash had. She’d lost hope that they’deverget back there. With every tender lovemaking session she felt less like a hot bitch and more like she was back in hospital, barely able to move without getting stuck with more morphine.
Her husband was silent beside her, and she wished she could believe he was appreciating the view. But she knew him better than that. Willow was thinking about her.Worryingabout her. Though she was starting to think it wasn’t really her he was worried about. It was an idea of her that had been born in his head six months ago, a version of Eden Cartwright-Williams that was fragile as paper.
“We’ll have to get going soon,” she told him, unable to bear the quiet. “The car’s coming at nine.”
“I remember. Bar Camelina, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Despite their sojourn to the Griffith Observatory, she and Willow were in LA on business. Well, she was. Against all odds, she was in talks to produce an album for Quinley Wu. A former Disney star with a sickly-sweet pop catalogue, Quinley was angling for a grittier ‘Oliva Rodriguez-Charli XCX’ route to superstardom. Thousands of American producers would have given their right hands for the gig, but apparently, Quinley wanted to go outside the box. And she couldn’t have gone out of the box further than a cult Australian DJ who’d switched to producing after having kids, but somehow, Quinley had found her.
“I love your sound,”she’d written in an Instagram DM Eden had initially mistaken for a hoax.“And I love the songs you made with Baybee and Anoia. When Baybee blew up on TikTok, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t already heard of you. You have the coolest fucking taste, and I want you for my next record. Can we please get in touch?”
So, they had, in a very ‘your manager calls my managers, calls my assistant, calls my dog, calls your mother to get back to me on Monday’ way. Not that it was Quinley’s fault. Turned out famous-as-shit artists had a lot of people invested in their success. But the initial fifty-person Zoom meetings had gonewell, and now here Eden was, in the City of Angels, on the verge of signing the biggest contract of her life, with Willow along for the ride.
I should be happy, she thought, as though that ever helped. Truthfully, she wished she was alone. Because tonight she and Quinley were going to meet face-to-face and decide if they could make this thing work, and she needed to play the role of shit-hot, all-powerful producer, and she had no idea how to do that while Willow treated her like cracked glass that might shatter at any moment.
A warm hand closed over hers, and she looked up to see her husband smiling at her, his expression strained but sincere. “I’ve been thinking you should go to this thing by yourself tonight.”
Eden’s jaw almost hit the ground. “I don’t… You think so?”
“Yeah, I can’t see myself helping you relax and do your thing. And if I’m not doing that, what’s the point of me being there?”
He said it lightly, but she heard the self-loathing beneath his words, and her heart ached because they could both remember when Willow was theonlyperson who could help her relax. The only person who could bring her home when she got lost.
“It’s not your fault,” she whispered so the other tourists couldn’t hear. “I get that my accident was fucked. I get that it’ll take time, and I’m sorry about this morning?—”
“Don’t apologise. You need to get into the zone. Let’s get back to the hotel, and you can put on music and prep.”
Eden’s heart hurt worse than ever, gratitude and grief smashing together like cymbals. “What… What will you do?”
He shrugged. “Go to the hotel pool. Get pissed. Watch cricket highlights on my phone.”
Smiling took every ounce of strength Eden had, but she managed it. “Okay, Mr Williams. Thank you. And we will sort this all out, talk properly, and go back and see a therapist again if we have to. We can fix everything.”
Willow’s smile looked as miserable as hers felt. “Exactly.”
The record company sent a massive,shiny, black car to the hotel; some unholy combination of limousine and assault vehicle. Eden sat in the back, drinking a complimentary glass of champagne that became two because LA traffic had more problems than her marriage. Her blonde hair was piled high, her pink pleather dress was ultra tight, and her spike heels were already crushing her toes, but she’d needed an outfit that said,‘I might have two kids and way too many boardgames in my house but I’m still a killer bitch.’
